In his cradling arms the duar began to vibrate and glow mightily. This time the luminescence spread from the strings to encompass the entire instrument. It was like a live thing in his hands, struggling to break free. He hung on tight while awkwardly picking out the notes. Rising chords sprang from his right fingers.
Talea and Mudge stepped back from him, their eyes wide and intent on the open grass between. A pulsing, yellow ball of light had tumbled from the duar to land on the earth. It grew and twisted, swollen with the music. Jon-Tom was facing away from it, preoccupied with his playing.
When Talea’s cry finally made him turn the glowing shape had grown considerably. It was working, he told himself excitedly! The shape was beginning to assume a roughly cylindrical outline. He hoped the lemon-yellow convertible would materialize with a full tank of gas (he didn’t know any songs about gasoline). Then they would continue in luxury through the forest in a vehicle the likes of which this world had never imagined.
He really was a little drunk now. Too much pride can stupify the brain as readily as alcohol. He began to improvise stanzas about AM/FM radios, CB’s, racing stripes and mags and slicks. After all, as long as he was conjuring up a vehicle he might as well do it up right.
Abruptly there was a loud bang, a toy thunderbolt like a thousand capguns all going off simultaneously. It knocked him back on his butt. The duar flopped against his stomach.
There was something long and powerful where the contorting yellow cylinder had been. It did not boast slicks, but of its traction there could be no doubt. There were no racing stripes and certainly nothing electronic.
The headlights turned to look at him. They were a bright, rich red save for the black slashes in the centers. A long tongue emerged from the front and flicked questioningly at his sprawled form.
There was a noise from the “vehicle.” He looked frantically over at it, and it back at him.
In contrast to his evident terror, both Talea and Mudge appeared anything but cowed. They were inspecting the vehicle casually, admiringly. That gave him the courage to sit up and take a closer look at his conjuration.
It was sight of the reins that brought understanding. There was no bit in the enormous snake’s mouth. No living thing could control that single mass of muscle by pulling on its mouth. Instead, the reins were linked to the two ear openings set just in back of the eyes.
Talea moved around in front of the snake and gathered in the reins. She gave a short, sharp tug and barked a single word. Twice as thick as Jon-Tom was tall, the immense reptile turned and docilely dropped its head to the ground. Red eyes stared blankly straight ahead.
Jon-Tom had climbed to his feet and allowed himself to be pulled along by an exuberant Mudge. “Come on then, mate. ’Tis one hellaciously fine wizard you be! Sorry I am that I made fun o’ you.”
“Forget it.” He shook himself out of his mental stupor, allowed himself to be led toward the great snake. It was at least forty feet long, though its immense bulk made it appear shorter. Four saddles were mounted on its back. They were secured not by straps around the belly as with a horse but by a peculiar suction arrangement that held the seats tight to the slick scales.
Having calmed down a little, he had to admit that the snake was quite lovely, clad as it was in alternating bands of red, blue, and bright orange that ran like tempera around its girth. This then was the “vehicle” his song had called up. The magic had worked, but translated into this world’s terms. Apparently his abilities weren’t quite powerful enough for the forces of magic to take his words literally.
“Is it poisonous?” was the first thing he could think to ask.
Mudge let out his high, chirping otter-laugh, urged Jon-Tom toward one of the rear saddles. “Cor, you’re a funny one, mate.” Talea had already taken the lead position. She was waiting impatiently for her companions to mount up.
“’Tis a L’borean Riding Snake, and what pray tell would it need poison for t’ defend itself against? ’Cept one o’ its own relatives, and its teeth are plenty big enough t’ ’andle that occasional family chore.”
“What the devil does something this size feed on?”
“Oh, other lizards, most. Any o’ the large nonintelligent herbivores it can find in the wild.”
“Even so, some of them are tamed for riding?”
Mudge shook his head at the obvious joke. “Now what were you imaginin’ these were for?” He rapped the leather saddle loudly. The stirrups were a bit high for him, but strong arms pulled him to where he could get his feet into them.
“Climb aboard, then, mate, and ride.”
Jon-Tom moved to the last saddle. He got a good grip on the pommel, put his right boot in the stirrup, and pulled. His left foot dragged against the side of the creature, which took no notice of the contact. It was like kicking a steel bar.
He found himself staring past Mudge at the beacon of Talea’s hair. She uttered a low hiss. The snake started forward obediently, and Jon-Tom reached down and used the curved handle-pommel to steady himself.
The movement was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Not that he’d ever ridden any animal other than the ponies who once frequented his hometown, but it still seemed incredibly gentle. He was put in mind of the stride of the lizards who had pulled their lost wagon; only having no legs, the snake produced an even smoother ride. Technically, it had no gait at all.
There was no jouncing or bouncing. The snake glided like oil over bumps and boulders. After a few minutes of vibration-free ride Jon-Tom felt confident in letting loose of the handle. He relaxed and enjoyed for a change the passing sights of the forest. It was amazing how relaxed the mind could become when one’s feet no longer hurt.
He made certain the duar was secured across his belly and his fighting staff was still tight on his back, then settled back to enjoy the ride.
The only thing difficult to get used to was the feeling of not knowing where they were headed, since the snake’s slithering, rippling method of making progress was quite deceptive. Eventually he learned to keep a close eye on the reptile’s head. It was more like traveling in a tacking sailboat than on a horse.
Smooth as the ride was, the constant moving from right to left in order to proceed forward was making him slightly queasy. This was solved when he directed his attention sideways instead of trying to stare straight ahead.
“I didn’t mean to call this monster up, you know,” he said to Mudge. “I was trying for something completely different.”
“And what might that ’ave been?” A curious Mudge looked back over his shoulder, content to let Talea lead now that he’d given her a heading.
“Actually, I was sort of hoping for a Jeep Wagoneer, or maybe a Landcruiser. But I didn’t know any songs—any spells—for them, so I tried to come as close as I could with what I had.”
“I don’t know wot the first might be,” replied Mudge, meticulously preening his whiskers and face, “but a ‘landcruiser’ be wot we ’ave, if not just precisely the variety you’d ’oped for.”
“I guess.” Jon-Tom sounded thoughtful. “I suppose it’s a good thing I didn’t know any songs about tanks. No telling what we might have ended up with.”
Mudge frowned. “Now that’s a peculiar thing t’ say. Wot would we ’ave needed with extra water, wot with streams aboundin’ throughout this part o’ the Bellwoods?”
Jon-Tom started to explain, decided instead that this was not the time to launch into a complicated explanation of otherworldly technologies. Mudge and Talea appeared quite pleased with the snake. There was no reason for him not to be equally satisfied. Certainly its ride was far smoother than any mechanized vehicle’s would have been.
Idly he ran his fingers over the small strings of the duar. Delicate harplike notes sauntered through the forest air. They still possessed the inexplicable if familiar electronic twang of his old Grundig. Blue sparks shot from beneath his fingers.
He started to hum a few bars of “Scarborough Fair,” then thought b
etter of it. He didn’t want anything to divert them from their intended rendezvous with Clothahump. Who knew what some casually uttered words might conjure up? Possibly they might suddenly find themselves confronted with a fair, complete with food, jugglers and minstrels, and even police.
Play to amuse yourself if you must, he told himself, but keep the words to yourself. So he kept his mouth shut while he continued to play. His fingers stayed clear of the longer upper strings because no matter how softly he tried to strum those, they generated a disconcertingly vast barrage of sound. They remained linked to some mysterious magickry of amplification that he was powerless to disengage.
He’d hoped for a four-wheel drive, tried for two-wheel, and had produced a no-wheel drive that was far more efficient than anything he’d imagined. Now, what else would add to his feeling of comfort in the forest? An M-16 perhaps, or considering the size of the riding snake and its as yet unseen but possibly belligerent relatives, maybe a few Honest John Rockets.
What’d he’d likely get would be a sword or something. Better to rely on his wits and the war staff bouncing against his spine. Or he might produce the weapon in the firing stage. He would have to be very, very careful indeed if he tried to sing up anything else, he decided. Perhaps Clothahump would have some good advice.
He continued to play as they slithered on through increasing darkness. When asked about why they were continuing, Talea replied, “We want to make as much distance as we can tonight.”
“Why the sudden rush? We’re doing a helluva lot better than we did when we were walking.”
She leaned to her left, looked past him, and pointed downward. “We weren’t leaving this kind of trail, either.” Jon-Tom looked back and noted the wake of crushed brush and grass the snake was producing. “Outriders from Thieves’ Hall will surely pick it up.”
“So? Why should they connect that up with us?”
“Probably they won’t. But L’borean riding snakes are available only to the extremely wealthy. They’d follow any such track, especially one not leading straight for town, hoping to run down a fat prize. Their disappointment in finding us instead of some rich merchant wouldn’t bode well for our futures.”
“Bloody well right,” agreed Mudge readily. “There’s a disconcertin’ and disgustin’ tendency toward settlin’ discontents without resortin’ to words.”
“Beg your pardon?” said Jon-Tom with a frown.
“Kill first and ask questions afterward.”
He nodded grimly. “We have some of those where I come from, too.”
He turned moodily back to the duar. It was barely visible in the intensifying night. He fiddled with the bottom controls, and the strings fluttered with blue fire as he played. Carefully he kept his lips closed, forced himself not to voice the words of the song he was playing. It was hard to remember the melody without voicing the words. A silver-dollar moon was rising in the east.
Once he caught himself softly singing words and something green was forming alongside the snake. Damn, this wasn’t going to work. He needed to play something without words in order to be completely safe.
He changed the motion of his fingers on the strings. Better, he thought. Then he noticed Mudge staring at him.
“Something wrong?”
“Wot the ’ell is goin’ on with you, Jon-Tom?”
“It’s a Bach fugue,” he replied, not understanding. “Quite a well-known piece where I come from.”
“’Ell with that, mate. I wasn’t referrin’ t’ your music. I was referrin’ t’ your company.”
His voice was oddly muted, neither alarmed nor relaxed. Jon-Tom looked to his right … and had to grab the saddle handle to keep from falling out of his seat… .
X
HE FOUND HIMSELF STARING directly at a huge swarm of nothing. That is, it seemed that there was definitely something present. Hundreds of somethings, in fact. But when he looked at them, they weren’t there.
They had moved to his left. He turned to face them, and as he did so, they moved somewhere else.
“Above you, mate … I think.” Jon-Tom’s head snapped back, just in time to espy the absence of whatever it had been. They’d moved down and to his right, behind a large gingko tree where he couldn’t see them because they’d shifted their position to his left, where they no longer were and …
He was getting dizzy.
It was as if he were hunting a visual echo. He was left teasing his retinas; every time he turned there were the shadows of ghosts.
“I don’t see a thing. I almost do, but never quite.”
“Surely you do.” Mudge was grinning now. “Just like meself, we’re seeing them after they aren’t there any more.”
“But you were looking at them a moment ago,” said Jon-Tom, feeling very foolish now because he knew there was definitely something near them in the forest. “You told me where to look, where they’d moved to.”
“You’re ’alf right, mate. I told you where t’ look, but not where they were. You can only see where they’ve been, not where they are.” He scratched one ear as he stared back over a furry shoulder. “It never works. You never can see ’em, but those folks who are lucky enough not t’ almost see ’em never stop from tryin’. There!”
He gestured sharply to his right. Jon-Tom’s head spun around so fast a nerve spasmed in his neck and he winced in pain. Visual footprints formed an afterimage in his brain.
“They’re all around us,” Mudge told him. “Around you, mostly.”
“What are?” His brain was getting as twisted as his optic nerves. It was bad enough not to be able to see something you knew was present without having to try and imagine what they were. Or weren’t. It was like magnets. You could get the repelling poles close to each other, but at the last possible instant, they’d always slide apart.
“Gneechees.”
Jon-Tom turned sharply to his left. Again his gaze caught nothing. He was positive if he shifted his eyes just another quarter inch around he’d have whatever was there in clear focus. “What the hell are gneechees?”
“Blimey, you mean you don’t ’ave ’em where you come from?”
“Where I come from we don’t have a lot of the things you’re used to, Mudge.”
“I always thought …” The otter shrugged. “The gneechees be everywhere around us. Some times they’re more visible than at others, or less invisible ’ud be a better way o’ puttin’ it. Millions and millions of ’em.”
“Millions? Then why can’t I see just one?”
Mudge threw up his paws. “Now that’s a fine question, ain’t it? I don’t know. Nobody knows. Not even Clothahump, I’d wager. As to wot they be, that’s another nice little mystery. ’Bout the best description I ever ’eard of ’em was that they’re the things you seen when you turn your ’ead and there’s nothin’ there, but you’re sure there was somethin’. Gneechees are wot you almost see out o’ the corner o’ your eye, and when you turn to look at it, it’s gone. They’re the almost-wases, the nearly theres, the maybe-couldbes. They’re always with us and never there.”
Jon-Tom leaned thoughtfully back in his saddle, fighting the urge to glance constantly to right or left. “Maybe we do have them. But they seem to be just slightly more visible, just a touch more substantial here than back home.” He wondered if there were millions of gneechees swarming around the university. They might be the explanation for a lot of things.
“How can you be so sure they’re real, if you can never see one?”
“Oh, they’re real enough, mate. You know they’re real just as I do, because your noggin tells you there’s somethin’ there. It’s foolin’ your mind and not quite completely foolin’ your eyes. Not that I care much ’bout ’em. My concerns are more prosaic, they are.
“’Tis mighty frustratin’ t’ them who worry about such things, though. See, they’re immune t’ magic. There’s not the wizard been who could slow down a gneechee long enough t’ figure exactly what one was. Not Clothahump, not Quelnor, no
t the legendary sorceress Kasadelma could do it.
“They be ’armless, though. I’ve never ’eard o’ anyone bein’ affected by ’em one way or t’other.”
“How could you tell?” Jon-Tom wondered. “You can’t see them.”
“Cor, but you could sure enough see the victim, if they took a notion to go to troublin’ someone.”
“They give me the crawlies.” He tried not to look around, and found himself hunting all the harder. It was one thing to think you were seeing things that weren’t, quite another to learn for a fact that millions and millions of minute creatures of unknown aspect and intent were occupying the air around you.
“Why are they hanging around me?”
“Who knows, mate. ’Cept that I’ve ’eard gneechees are attracted t’ worried folk. People who be frettin’, or upset. Same goes for magickers. Now, you fit both categories. ’Aven’t you ever noticed somethin’ around you when you’ve been like that?”
“Naturally. You always tend to imagine more when you’re upset or stressed.”
“’Cept you’re not imaginin’ them,” Mudge explained. “They’re ’angin’ about all right. ’Tis not their fault. I expect that’s just wot they’re sensitive to, not t’ mention the fact that your emotions and feelin’s are otherworldly in nature.”
“Well, I wish they’d go away.” He turned and shouted, “Go on, go away! All of you!” He waved his hands as though it were a flock of flies he could shoo from his psyche. “Harmless or otherwise, I don’t want you around. You’re making me nervous!”
“Now that won’t do, Jon-Tom.” Talea had twisted around in her lead saddle and was staring back at him. “The more angry you become the more the gneechees will cling to your presence.”
He continued swatting sideways. “How come I can’t hit one? I don’t have to see one to hit one. If there’s something there, surely I ought to get in a lucky swipe sooner or later.”
Mudge let out a sigh. “Crikey, lad, sometimes I think whoever set you out on the tightrope o’ life forgot t’ give you your balancin’ pole. If the gneechees be too fast for us t’ see, ’ow do you expect t’ fool one with somethin’ as slow as the back o’ your ’and? I expect we must seem t’ be swimmin’ through a vat o’ blackstrap molasses from their point o’ view. Maybe we don’t seem t’ be movin’ at all and they just consider us parts o’ the landscape. ’Cept we’re the parts that generate the emotions or forces or wotever it is that occasionally attracts ’em in big numbers. Just thank whotever sign you were born under that they are ’armless.”
Spellsinger: A Spellsinger Adventure (Book One) Page 15